The very thought of staying awakened at night may turn you into an "insomniac" in your mind. Seeing the faint morning light may imbibe a holy feeling in your mind, but it will not be the same if you have had a sleepless night. But now, insomniacs may really see a ray of hope in the morning light with researchers claiming that a cooling cap can help relieve the condition.
The research conducted by experts from the Sleep Neuroimaging Research Program at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine, suggested that wearing a cooling cap at night while sleeping may enable an insomniac to get a goodnight's sleep.
This study involved the screening of 110 people and 12 people had primary insomnia. There were 12 other age and gender matched controls as well. The average age of the insomniacs was 45 years and 9 of the 12 subjects were women.
The subjects were asked to wear soft plastic caps on their heads. Water ran continuously throughout the cap via the tubes that were present in the caps. This way, the subjects were made to experience all-night cerebral thermal transfer, the intensities of which were varied to examine the effects.
Researchers came to observe the effects of the procedure on sleep latency and sleep efficiency. It was found that the primary insomniacs took 13 minutes to fall asleep. The percentage of time during which they slept while receiving treatment at the maximum cooling intensity was found to be similar with that of the healthy group.
The study was based on the concept that people fall asleep when the metabolism in the frontal cortex of the brain gets reduced. But insomnia results when the metabolism gets increased in the same part. It is through "cerebral hypothermia" or cerebral thermal transfer that the cerebral metabolic activity can be reduced.
So far, people have been depending about medications to treat insomnia. Researchers believe that this safe, non-pharmacological mechanism can act as a natural way to provide some relief to the insomnia sufferers.
